Game of Many Lives

Fifth Life

--Quick Author's Note:--

[I haven't touched this in over 5 years. I don't know where I was heading with this "life" and probably won't be finishing it. I'm posting what I have of it though. I don't know if I'll do another one or not. Let me think on that for awhile. Either way, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed your time here.]

I remember certain things about my fifth life vividly, just like my wife's voice in my fourth.

This one was hard, I had died in my sleep one night, next to my wife, it was a few days before Christmas and my wife and I were expecting our children and grandchildren to be arriving in the morning for the holiday.

Next thing I knew, I was taking my first breaths as someone else.

I was a terrible baby.

My mother whispered threats to smother me in my sleep to my father.

I was upset, and I had my reasons. Not that they knew any of them.

I had nightmares of my sister in my previous life stabbing out my eyes, or I dreamt of waking up next to my wife and seeing her face for the first time, since I now had eyes that could see. But I'd wake up in the middle of the night and start wailing everytime.

My mother got fed up with me quickly, and focused on my sisters, my father realized this and took it upon himself to take care of me for the first few years of my life, until I had settled down a bit.

By the time I was four, and I could make it a month or two in between my nighttime fits, my mother started to warm up to me. I was her third daughter, but I was by far the girliest, or at least considered the most feminine and dainty. And my mother liked that.

I cried a lot still. Sometimes over silly things.

I remember I cried when the grandmother of someone I didn't know died. In none of my past lives would I have shed a tear for that woman, I hadn't met her or her grandchild, but somehow it felt like a void had been ripped in the world. I cried for days. My father tried to calm me unsuccessfully for the first three days, by the fourth my mother stepped in and brushed my hair and told me stories and sang songs. It reminded me of my old life, just a little. I managed to stop crying in the hopes she'd do it again sometime, and it became somewhat of a ritual everytime I had one of my fits.

I was close to my mother after that.

You should've seen the look of releif on my father's face when he finally realized.

I started helping my mother out with the housework soon after. I enjoyed it, it was something to distract me, and I could be useful.

My sisters did the more complex chores.

I found myself excitedly waiting for the day I could help with those chores too.